Killarney · With kids

A lakeside mansion with working traditional farms alongside — horses, pigs, forges and cottages that children can walk straight into. From about three.

A tower house on Lough Leane with hour-long boat trips out to Innisfallen island. Easy, flat parkland walks from the car park. Ages five up.

Ten minutes' walk from the road to a twenty-metre fall, then two hundred steps for a view over the lakes if legs allow.

A small farm park outside town with deer, donkeys, an indoor play barn and a picnic field — a solid wet-weather morning for under-tens.

Lakeside midges bite hard at dusk from summer onward. Jaunting-car trips run thirty to sixty minutes, and restaurants seat families comfortably before seven.